Syracuse Injury Lawyer Blog

According to Syracuse.com, the body of Richard G. Fesko was found on Friday afternoon in a manure pit off of East Lake Road in Skaneateles, New York. The circumstances of Mr. Fesko's death are under investigation. The family told police that Mr. Fesko was spreading manure the day he died.

Generally, manure is spread by a tractor equipped with a manure spreader. Customarily, the spreader is either attached to or pulled behind the tractor. Tractor attachments, including manure spreaders, can cause tractors to become unstable and tip or roll depending upon the terrain. If a tractor that does not have ROPS (roll over protection systems) flips or rolls, the driver can be thrown from the equipment and suffer serious injury and/or be crushed underneath the weight of the machine.

For more than twenty years, farm equipment manufacturers have known that ROPS save lives. While most manufacturers build their machines with ROPS, some have refused to do so -- primarily because ROPS make equipment more expensive. In these circumstances, the manufacturer of the equipment may be liable for personal injury and/or wrongful death. Other equipment was manufactured and sold before ROPS became standard operating equipment. Even so, manufacturers have a duty to notify existing customers that safety devices have become available and can be retrofit to old machines. We discussed ROPS subsidies in our prior post entitled "New York Tractor Rollover Injury and Death To Decline With ROPS Subsidy."

If you or a loved one were injured in a farm tractor accident or lawn mower accident and would like to know whether you have a claim against the manufacturer for product liability, contact our Syracuse New York personal injury lawyers at 800-336-5297 or by email at info@bottarleone.com.

"New York has more than 7,000,000 acres of farmland and almost 25,000 farm families. And farming in New York, especially on our hilly landscape, can be challenging," said Syracuse personal injury lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Leone, PLLC, a team of New York product liability attorneys.

According to the National Safety Council, the leading cause of farmer death over the past 40 years has been tractor rollovers or overturns. Many of the tractors involved in incidents leading to serious injury or death were brought into the country long ago. Some of the tractors were imported through intended channels, including authorized United States dealers and distributors. However, some of the equipment is "gray market." Gray market equipment is equipment manufactured for another market, such as Asia, but imported into the United States through private channels for resale and use.

However tractors made their way into the United States, and into the possession of New York farmers, many are not equipped with rollover protection systems (also known as ROPS). ROPS include seatbelts, as well as cabins or cages to protect an occupant from a crush injury should the equipment flip during use. "These machines may be unreasonably dangerous and, in turn, defective," Bottar said.

This year, New York State will spend as much as $100,000.00 to equip tractors with ROPS by offering a discount or subsidy to farmers of $600.00 for a ROPS system to update equipment manufactured by, e.g., Kubota, Yanmar and Caterpillar. The telephone number for the ROPS hotline is: 1-877-ROPS-R4U.

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